1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer systems.
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2. Background Art
Computer systems can display a variety of data on a display. Often, the background layer of a display shows a pattern that a user can select. Often these backgrounds are generated by repeating a single tile to fill the display area. For example, Internet web pages with textured background are usually rendered as a tile pattern. Existing rendering methods require the use of off-screen memory to store the tile pattern. The tile pattern is then transferred to on-screen memory for display. However, in some computer systems, the display devices may not include any off-screen memory. As such, the entire background comprised of multiple instances of the tile pattern needs to be transmitted for display on the terminal. However, transmitting the entire tile pattern is time consuming and wastes valuable computational time and resources.
The present invention provides a method of updating a display device to fill at least a portion of a display area on the display device with a tiled pattern including repetitions of a tile image data stored at a host system interconnected to the remote system via a communication link. The display method comprises the host system determining the number of replications of the tile image data to fill the display area and transmitting display information to the remote system via the communication link, including: the tile image data; and replication information. The remote system receives the display information and generates the tile pattern by performing steps including: storing the tile image data starting at a location in an on-screen frame buffer corresponding to a coordinate location within the display area; and copying the tile image data into the frame buffer based on the replication information until said portion of the display area is filled with said tiled pattern.
The transmitted display information can further include a coordinate location on the display device for each repetition of the tile image, wherein the remote system copies the tile image data into the frame buffer at locations corresponding to the coordinate locations on the display device. The display area can comprise a non-rectangular display region and a non-display clipped region. In that case, host system divides the display region into one or more rectangular display regions and performing the above steps for each rectangular display region utilizing at least a portion the tile image data for filling each rectangular display region with repetitions of said portion of the tile image data.
In another aspect the present invention provides an apparatus for implementing the above steps.